Cliff, Chris, Charles, Levy, Russell, and Tim were convicted of the murder of Catherine Fuller.  The evidence now makes clear that they were innocent.  James McMillan killed Mrs. Fuller and got away with it.

Be advised: this page discusses the heartbreaking and graphic details of the murder underlying this case.

How do we know that McMillan killed Mrs. Fuller?

• McMillan lived off of the alley where Mrs. Fuller was killed, just over 30 yards from where Mrs. Fuller’s body was found. 

• The only reliable witness saw McMillan prowling the area suspiciously for hours before the murder.

• After the discovery of Mrs. Fuller’s body, McMillan was seen fleeing the scene of the murder as police arrived, just minutes after the time of Mrs. Fuller’s death.

• The same witnesses who saw him fleeing the scene also saw him hiding something under his jacket: this was likely the object used to sodomize Mrs. Fuller, which was never found. 

• Despite this witness account, McMillan’s identity was not revealed to defense counsel until decades after the trial. 

• McMillan was a serial assaulter of women in the H Street Corridor during this time period — attacking two other women the same month that Mrs. Fuller was murdered. 

• And, most importantly, after an eight-year stint in prison for those assaults, McMillan immediately returned to the neighborhood and committed an identical murder in 1992, revealing himself as Mrs. Fuller’s killer. 

All of the evidence points to McMillan, and no physical evidence points to Cliff, Chris, Charles, Levy, Russell, and Tim. 

So, how did McMillan get away with it?  The evidence that McMillan was seen both prowling and the leaving the scene was not known to the public, the jury, or defense lawyers at the time of the guys’ trial.  Prosecutors knew it, but did not disclose it.  And by the time he committed an identical murder in 1992, it was too late to hold him accountable for Mrs. Fuller’s death. 

Fortunately, McMillan is now serving out a life sentence without parole for the identical murder he committed in 1992.  He will never leave prison. But justice won’t be served until the guys receive pardons. 

Thanks to modern technology and evidence discovered since trial, we now know what happened to Mrs. Fuller.  McMillan spent the afternoon of October 1 looking for a victim. 

He encountered Fuller as she was stopping to have a drink in the alley behind H Street.

He dragged her into the garage and closed the door. 

He beat her. 

He then brutally sodomized her with a metal object, which punctured her internal organs and caused massive bleeding.

He left her to die.

The garage where Mrs. Fuller was murdered.

William Freeman was a street vendor who worked on the corner of 8th and H Street throughout the day of Mrs. Fuller’s murder.

By pairing Freeman’s testimony and police statements with other evidence, we now know this was the timeline of Mrs. Fuller’s murder:

McMillan then took off running, hiding an object under his clothes as he ran away. The object McMillan used to sodomize Mrs. Fuller was never found.

Days after Mrs. Fuller’s murder, McMillan attacked two other women in the same neighborhood.  He was arrested, convicted, and spent the next eight years locked away in prison for those crimes.

Just weeks after he got out of prison in 1992, McMillan committed an identical crime to Mrs. Fuller’s murder: McMillan sodomized and beat to death another female victim, Abbey McClosky, in an alley just three blocks from the scene of Mrs. Fuller’s murder. This fact pattern, involving a forcible sodomy, is extremely rare, occurring in fewer than 1% of murders.

McMillan’s presence at the crime scene before the attack; the witness evidence that he fled the scene of the crime as police arrived, hiding the probable murder weapon; his violence against other women in the neighborhood that same month; and his nearly identical murder years later make it clear he killed Mrs. Fuller.  As we explain elsewhere, the physical evidence confirms that one person — McMillan — not the large group prosecutors identified, committed this brutal crime.

McMillan killed Mrs. Fuller.  And Chris, Charles, Levy, Cliff, Russell, and Tim went to prison for decades as a result.  They are innocent.